Team:UIUC Illinois/Human Practices
Human Practices: Science Cafe Post all meeting videos all on the website Give a brief description on what we learned and advice
Brenda Wilson: Professor of Microbiology + Think of using the software as a proof of concept using other data Introduced us to GISAID database, which we used to build our database
Diwakar Shukla: Blue Waters Assistant Professor +Modify the antibody structure to build different antiviral agents that binds to as many mutated spike proteins as possible +Introduce point mutations of spike proteins and according changes in spike protein structures +Utilize machine learning concepts like the genetic algorithm for point mutations
Erik Procko: Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Professor of Biophysics and Quantitative Biology +End-user implementation: how current researchers of COVID-19 are already looking into the mutant diversity of the virus +Possibility of noise/sequencing errors in mutation research; look into how this could affect the construction of a sequence database for spike proteins
Huimin Zhao: Steven L. Miller Chair Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and professor of biochemistry, biophysics, and bioengineering +End-user possibilities: discussed how the implementation of a new sequence database could help current COVID researchers design a new vaccine/treatment a lot faster +Various parameters could affect antibody design and vaccine development, such as specific mutations and multiple unknowns/assumptions that have to be made
Mohammed El-Kebir: Assistant professor of Computer Science +Nonsynonymous mutation visualization can be performed using PyRosetta and a phylogenetic tree +Generate multiple sequence alignments using Nexstrain, since it’s important to index the sequence